


How to Build a Gingerbread House

by WinglessCrows



Series: Through the Eyes of a Cook [5]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Birthday, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 15:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8538508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinglessCrows/pseuds/WinglessCrows
Summary: It is Chopper's birthday and the crew goes all out on the sweetness





	

What is the one thing all pirates love? Is it treasure? Is it adventure? Well, it is those things as well, but they also love parties with plenty of food and drinks, consumed to the sound of up-beat music and followed by dancing among bright lights and laughter. The Captain of the notorious Strawhat crew would find any excuse to throw a party. One time they had celebrated that they had caught a fish that Luffy claimed had been green, with a long nose and a curly eyebrow... Well, Luffy was the Captain and if he wanted a party, he would get one.

This time though, it wasn't a stupid reason that had Sanji baking in the middle of the night. Sure, Chopper was gonna scold him later for not sleeping enough, but how mad could the reindeer get on his own birthday? When everything had been baked to perfection, Sanji woke Franky and Usopp, who were in on this little thing and they got to work. Franky removed the table and the chairs, which were usually nailed down to the kitchen floor, because this was a ship and if you expected it to stay still on the Grand Line, you were a bigger fool than the people who thought they could take Luffy down in a fight. Next they spread out the biggest piece of baking parchment you had ever seen, because making food directly on the kitchen floor was a straight path to food poisoning. Next they started the assembling and decorating.

Basically, the idea was to make a gingerbread house that was big enough for Chopper to actually be inside of. It would take up half the kitchen, but it would be the best gingerbread house ever created. Around 5 am the girls came in and started the decorations of the ship. Chopper's birthday happened to collide with Christmas Eve and while none of them really celebrated the holiday, many of them were quite fond of the decorations that came with it. The red and green decorations seemed to fit well with the crew, and the cinnamon, holly and oranges made the atmosphere pleasant and festive. Brook and Luffy were the next to wake and they began putting up lights that would make night look like day. Zoro had been tasked with keeping Chopper from coming onto deck too early, so they all still had about an hour to prepare.

When Brook started to play, it meant that the only thing left to finish was the gingerbread house. At this point it was as tall as Sanji and wider than Franky. Thanks to Franky, the house had a functional door and Usopp had made the colour combination of the icing look festive and very Chopper-ish. There were plenty of light red colours, which went well with the deep red and white. There were a few places of blue, purple and green, but nothing that drew too much attention. Sanji made sure to tell Usopp to make a drawing of the cake, because it truly was a masterpiece. Of course Sanji had made sure that it was exactly to Chopper's liking. Sweet, but not sickening. Every colour of icing had its different flavour and he had made sure to make three different doughs for the walls, floor and roof of the house, just to make it all the more interesting. The roof had also been decorated with chocolate buttons the size of Sanji's face and the corners were decorated with caramel. The inside had furniture-looking structures made from different colours and flavours of cotton candy. There was no way Chopper wasn't going to like this.

On the front of the house, Sanji made everyone write their name and a short message to Chopper with icing, just to make it more personal and damn, if this wasn't the best birthday cake he had ever made. When the last person had finished writing their message, Robin went to wake Zoro and Chopper. It was still early so there was good chance that Zoro at no point had had to make Chopper stay in bed, which would kind of have ruined the surprise.

Sanji loved surprises. Especially when he was the one surprising others. There was just nothing like the look on the face of someone who was greeted with a nice surprise and his crew mates all reacted to surprises in the best way. Upon entering the room, everyone had shouted 'Happy Birthday' and for a second Chopper had been speechless. And then came the tears. Sanji had honestly not seen Chopper this happy since the day he had left Sakura Kingdom, where he had been sent off with snowy cherry blossoms.

Chopper had beamed and hugged everyone after reading their messages. They were all were sweet and personal and in the end Chopper added a little Thank you on top of the door. Then came the exploring. Sanji had made sure that no one would touch anything until Chopper had tried a bit of everything. Chopper had been super excited about the idea of being able to go inside the cake and he looked like he was having the time of his life. While Chopper was exploring and slowly trying bits here and there, Sanji started making drinks and by the time he was finished, Chopper had given people permission to eat with him.

They had spent a good two hours eating and enjoying the house (what a healthy breakfast), they could probably have done it much faster, but there was a lot of talking and people tried to combine different parts of the house for the ultimate experience. Apparently Chopper had found that combining the dough of the ceiling with caramel, chocolate and the green mint-flavoured cotton candy was the best thing he had ever tasted. Luffy had at some point stopped eating (what a shocker!) to rest on a couch made of cotton candy. He had then said something along the lines of: "If heaven is like this, maybe I should become a marine?" to which Nami had slapped him and said that there was no way that he was going to heaven, since she would make sure to drag everyone to hell with her.

After the morning feast Brook started playing and dancing followed soon after. Sanji let himself leave the dishes for later and joined the festivities.

When night came and Sanji served the last meal of the day, the lights were out and they all sent a lantern and a wish to the skies. Sanji wished for their lives to remain as it was; exciting, loving and happy. Such a sappy wish, he thought, but that was what he wanted and no one was forced to tell their wish to others. Luffy had wished that the next island they came to was made of food and Zoro had accompanied that and wished for a sea made of booze. Sanji would have deemed those wishes stupid had it not been the Grand Line where he knew for a fact that there existed an island made of cake. Nami had wished for a safe journey, which Sanji thought would be hard even for the gods to make come true. They were sailing under Luffy and if he had the choice between safe and dangerous, you could bet your ass that he would choose dangerous, because "that's the most fun, right?". Robin and Usopp both kept their wishes to themselves, but both their eyes lingered at Luffy after they had let their lanterns fly. He guessed that their wishes were just as sappy as his. Franky had wished for the well-being of his family back on Water 7 and Brook had wished the same for Laboon. Chopper was the last to make his wish. He wished to see the miracle Sakura one more time to which Usopp and Franky smiled mysteriously at each other as they revealed that they had yet another present for the reindeer.

They made the remaining crew turn off all the lights and while they did so, Sanji noticed that Usopp had taken the Mini-Merry and sailed a good hundred metres away from the Sunny. After the last light had gone out there was a moment of complete silence in the dark as they all waited in anticipation. And then the first one exploded in the sky soon followed by another and then another. The fireworks were pink and resembled the Sakura of Chopper's home island. They lit up the night until the last one had been fired and it was the most spectacular one of them all. Sanji immediately knew that Usopp had spent many nights secretly working on this gift.

The last one started as a big explosion followed by nine smaller ones, which changed colour from white to red to gold and then finally to pink, before they exploded a last time to create the jolly roger that they were all sailing under; the crossbones and the skull wearing a strawhat. Sanji almost went deaf from the cheering that followed.

The only bad thing about the whole ordeal was that Robin's birthday was next and Sanji saw no way to top this.


End file.
